This study aims to determine the total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC) and antioxidant activity of ethanolic extract propolis (EEP) and water extract propolis (WEP) derived from six Malaysian stingless bee species. The TPC and TFC were measured by Folin-Ciocalteu colorimetric and aluminium chloride methods, respectively. The antioxidant activity was determined by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging assay. The results indicated that EEP of Geniotrigona thoracica had the highest TPC and TFC at 259.84 ± 4.97 mg/g GAE and 435.00 ± 6.57 mg/g QE, respectively. Similarly, EEP of G. thoracica exhibited the greatest free radical scavenging activity with the percentage of inhibition at 88.00 ± 13.34% and IC50 of 104.20μg/mL. Antioxidant activity was highly correlated with TPC (R2 = -0.744, p < 0.05) whereas no correlation was observed between TFC and antioxidant activity. This study indicates that the antioxidant property of the propolis extract may be influenced by elevated levels of phenolic content. In conclusion, ethanolic extract of G. thoracica is the greatest source of antioxidants among the six tested Malaysian stingless bee propolis and this suggests that the extract may serve as a promising source of antioxidant agent.

<!-- *** Custom HTML *** --> The oil palm pollinating weevil Elaeidobius kamerunicus Faust (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) was first introduced into Malaysia from Cameroon in 1981 as the main oil palm pollinator. Adult weevils were collected from six localities in Malaysia, one locality in Indonesia, and one locality in Liberia. Morphometric analysis was performed to detect possible morphological differences among these populations. Fifteen morphometric characters were examined and analyzed using multivariate analyses. Principle Component Analysis indicated that there was complete separation by sexual dimorphism for weevils from the three countries. Snout length between the apex and anterior eye margin at mid-height, profemoral length, body length, and pronotal width at the widest point were the morphometric characters that differentiated male and female weevils. Canonical Discriminant Analysis suggested that separation existed among the three different countries, with 77.5% and 83.3% classification accuracy for males and females, respectively.

Riparian areas hold vast number of flora and fauna with exceptional contributions to the ecosystem. A study was conducted in Sungai Sepetang, Sungai Rembau and Sungai Chukai to identify the insect community in a riparian zone of Peninsular Malaysia. Sampling was conducted in six consecutive months from December 2017 to May 2018 during both day and night using sweep nets. Twenty sampling stations (S1-S20) had been assembled along the riverbanks with an average distance of 200 m between each station. The 17,530 collected insects were from 11 orders and consisted of Diptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Neuroptera, Orthoptera, Blattodea, Thysanoptera, Mantodea and Odonata. The three most abundant orders were Diptera (33.84%; 5933 individuals), Coleoptera (28.82%; 5053 individuals) and Hemiptera (25.62%: 4491 individuals). The collected insect community consisted of different guilds such as the scavenger, predator, herbivore, pollinator and parasitoid. Sungai Sepetang and Sungai Rembau were dominated by mangrove flora,Sonneratia caseolaris(Myrtales: Lythraceae), while Sungai Chukai was dominated byBarringtonia racemosa. There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in the composition of insects between the three rivers though clustering analysis showed that the insect communities in Sungai Sepetang and Sungai Rembau were 100% similar compared to Sungai Chukai which consisted of a totally different community. There is a significant negative correlation between abundance of insects with salinity and wind speed at Sungai Chukai and Sungai Sepetang.

The attractiveness of cow dung of different ages towards dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) was studied in Tasik Chini Biosphere Reserve from February to April 2014. A total of 1,371 individuals belonging to 29 species and 11 genera had successfully collected in traps baited with cow dung aged at 1, 3 and 5 days. Cow dung was highly attractive at first 24 hours, and its attractiveness greatly reduced at Day 3 and Day 5. The result shows significant differences in the means of abundance (F = 4.60, d f= 2 & 24, P = 0.02) and species richness (F = 15.13, df = 2 & 24, P = 5.6 × 10−5). Bray Curtis similarity index indicated high community similarity between trap captures on Day 3 and Day 5 (59.7 %) compare to Day 1 (15.1 %) that leads to an assumption that some species preferentially colonized fresh dung while some species prefer aged dung. Species Copris agnus, Onthophagus aphodiodes, O. rorarius, O. orientalis, O. rutilans, O. vulpes, Oniticellus tessellatus and Paragymnopleurus maurus were captured on Day-1, while O. peninsularis and O. sumaveiensis captured on Day-3 and Day-5. Among the 11 genera, Onthophagus species was found to be most abundant with 762 individuals representing 55.6 % of the total captures. The most abundant species was Sisyphus thoracicus with 524 individuals (38.2 %). The dung beetle fauna’s species accumulation curve in Tasik Chini did not reach to an asymptote suggesting more sampling effort is needed.